Software builder, group fitness instructor

CodeStock 2015

This year marked the seventh year I’ve attended CodeStock, a two-day software developer conference in Knoxville, TN. Getting engaged, inspired, informed, and the having an opportunity to reconnect with others is what makes attending such conferences worth it for me.

Speaker dinner

I submitted a talk and was accepted, so I was able to take part in the speaker dinner the day before the conference. The venue (World’s Fair Sunsphere) was quite nice; I’ve lived in Knoxville for 14 years and never took the time to visit this landmark.

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The atmosphere was very chill and I was able to meet some new folks and reconnect with others I haven’t spoken to for some time. I even bumped into someone that was a student in one of the classes I TA’d for several years ago. The food and conversations were wonderful.

An added perk of going to the dinner is that I could pick up my badge and conference swag allowing me to bypass registration lines and not have extra stuff to tote around for 8 hours.

The larger venue afforded more attendees — over 900. Several ballrooms were available for the keynote, popular talks, and having lunch. There were eight presentation rooms that seated around 100 people.

Although there was quite a bit of walking because of the larger space, there were more opportunities to have hallway conversations without interrupting traffic. Instead of one food line, there were four. There was free Wi-Fi as well.

The speakers were well taken care of: podium with Ethernet, HDMI and VGA connections to a decent projector, wireless lapel mics, access to an A/V tech person if needed, and a speaker’s lounge.

What was great

Because information about technology is so easy to find these days, tech conferences excel at providing information about leading-edge tech and faciliating face-to-face networking. Given the tech I work with is not leading-edge, I try to make the most out of meeting and interacting with other people.

Pretty much every topic one would expect to see was covered — domain-driven design, Web development, testing, functional programming, entrepreneurship.

What was missing

With eight sessions going on simultaneously, it’s always a tradeoff to figure out which session to attend (and which room it’s in). In previous years, there was a printed guidebook with the talks (and abstracts) listed along side the room and time. CodeStock has also used the guidebook app to let people build out their schedule and get alerts about next sessions. This year, they had a single web page with all the talks listed. On a mobile device, that made for lots of scrolling; at times, I clicked on a talk to get the abstract, and that information would display all the way at the bottom.

This is the second year they’ve stopped doing open spaces. (These have been replaced by lightning talks.) I’m kicking myself for not spending more time in the open space sessions in previous years, as they are a great way of having small-group discussions with really smart people. (Again, networking opportunities abound.)

Talks attended

These notes aren’t exhaustive; I just wanted to share some of the things I jotted down during the talks.

Techniques used by magicians can be used by sales (think astonishment and amazement)

Will your apps make people smile?

As with magic, we need to be masters of attention management — grab me quickly and don’t distract me

What’s the story for your app? Who’s the hero, and who’s the villain?

Wrapping up

I had a really good experience this year, and I hope the trend continues. Although the Knoxville developer scene isn’t as hip as Chattanooga or as large as Nashville or Atlanta, there are some good minds here. Now I just need to balance the feelings of being energized and overstuffed!